


Astrolabe and Carousel

by noisette



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bondage, Bottom Steve Rogers, Choking, Dominance, First Time, M/M, Masturbation, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Rough Sex, Submission, Top Bruce, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-24
Updated: 2014-01-24
Packaged: 2018-01-09 21:29:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1150990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noisette/pseuds/noisette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve doesn’t cope well with media attention. Bruce lends a helping hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Astrolabe and Carousel

**Author's Note:**

> For [mrs-danny-gold](%E2%80%9D). She wanted Loki/Steve, **Bruce/Steve** or Thor/Steve and **bondage** , costume sex, mjolnir, jotun!Loki, **rough sex, choking kink, masturbation**. I tried to hit as many squares on the bingo card as I could. This is basically porn without plot. Enjoy!

The suit is normally as easy to peel off as a pair of jeans. Then again, normally Steve doesn’t have an audience for the post-press junket pity party. The other Avengers know to give him a wide berth when he gets like this – and the empty circle around him is growing wider and wider. 

Yesterday he got short with Clint because the sound of an offhand joke rubbed him the wrong way. Last week he threatened to tape Tony’s mouth shut if he didn’t stop rating the reporters. (He wasn’t talking about which he’d screw. Tony’s not like that. But it got under Steve’s skin anyway.) 

He’s terrified of the day he says something to Natasha, because she _will_ smack him and he’s not sure that’ll be enough to make him come to his senses. (Fury’s out of the question; he’s not at the Tower enough to notice Steve’s behind-the-scenes antics.) But that’s between Steve and the mental acrobatics required to keep him smiling in front of the cameras and gracious whenever he leaves the Tower. 

It’s none of Dr. Banner’s business. Steve says so.

“You were singing a different tune in Bogota,” Bruce deadpans. “You forgot the boots.”

Steve grits his teeth. If he were a dog, he’d put his hackles up, bare fang. He’s not, so he sucks in a fortifying breath and lets it out slowly. “Thought we agreed Bogota was a mistake.” They’d nearly lost Clint. Bruce was wracked with guilt – as he often is when people close to him get hurt – and Steve didn’t know how to fix it. Neither of them was coping well. A blowjob in a derelict hotel was the best they could do in a tight spot. It hardly counts.

Bruce arches a brow. “Then we probably shouldn’t have done it again in Calgary.”

“We were freezing,” Steve shoots back, crouching to unfasten the clasps on his boots. They’re shiny today, fit for photographers’ flashes. He kicks them off, then sheds the polymer suit. He’s learned it’s better not to wear underwear with the spandex. It usually leads to chafing. “Look—“

Bruce shakes his head. “On the bed.” He followed Steve into the bedroom and claimed an armchair opposite the king that’s always felt a little too big for Steve to sleep in alone. He makes no move to vacate the chair now that Steve’s naked and half-hard – but not embarrassed, damn it, because he’s sick of people treating him like he’s twelve. 

If one more reporter sighs at him about quaint old-fashioned _traditional_ values, he’ll break something. Possibly his knuckles. They’re all pushing an agenda.

Steve kneels on the bed, knees hip-width apart, just in case this is foreplay to something more interesting. He’s not the ruddy-cheeked cherub the media has decided to cast him as. Bruce knows that better than most. Though how it could be foreplay with him so far is beyond Steve. He cocks his head, tries to play it sultry, like a 40s pin-up. Stops just as quickly, feeling ridiculous. 

“Lie down,” Bruce says calmly. He’s not glaring, but it’s close. Steve hates that look. It makes him want to hide under a rock.

Since Tony’s failed to provide him with a suitable boulder, Steve complies. 

“Other side.” Bruce doesn’t often call the shots in the field and so far he’s been content to let Steve do whatever he likes in the bedroom (beds were involved in Calgary _and_ Bogota; they just didn’t make it to them in time). 

“If the next words out of your mouth are _close your eyes and go to sleep_ , you can just—“

Bruce is on his feet in the space of a heartbeat, his grip on Steve’s wrists tight enough to bruise. His first instinct is to shake him off, but that kernel of panic has been smothered by the months they’ve spent shoulder to shoulder in the back of cargo planes, in theaters of war where the enemy isn’t always alien and collateral damage can’t always be prevented. Breakfast, lunch and dinners have come and gone, leaving something akin to friendship in their wake. Problem: Steve has never gone to his knees for a friend before and he doesn’t know how to reconcile camaraderie with – well, this. The erection he’s sporting as soon as Bruce puts his hands on him. The skip of his heartbeat.

He can’t say for sure, but he doubts the world has evolved that much in seventy years.

Cue Bruce pulling his belt free of his cords and securing it crudely around Steve’s wrists. The leather strip bites and cuts, buckle drooping like a deadweight, but Steve could tear free in an instant if he put his mind to it. Instead, he stares. He hates that he has to look up at Bruce even as a treacherous little part of him instantly warms to the idea. Bruce looks good from this angle. His shirt collar is unbuttoned, a thatch of dusky chest hair visible through the gap. His pants sag without the belt to hold them up. 

Steve’s seen headlines pick apart their looks, their diet. Every twitch is cataloged. More than one hack has questioned the wisdom of letting a middle-aged, portly professor play in the same league as the Avengers – often questioning, in the same article, if Tony Stark had already moved on from Pepper to a younger, prettier partner just because Tony made the mistake to be photographed within ten feet of another woman. 

Double standards are nothing new, but the press has grown fangs since the 40s. Steve hoists himself onto his elbows and nudges his face against Bruce’s inseam. It’s not hiding under a rock, but it’s not far, either. 

“They really did a number on you, didn’t they?” Bruce cups the back of his neck. “Next time, let Tony tag along.”

“Why? They’ll just splice another ‘illicit queer romance’ snuff piece…” Not so far from the truth; the press is just fixated on the wrong Avenger. Steve forces his thoughts away from romance – another old-timey, quaint sobriquet for _fucking_. That’s all this is.

Bruce knots fingers in his hair, as though reading his thoughts. Steve doesn’t bother concealing a moan. He likes it when Bruce gets a little rough with him, but it’s usually a struggle to coax him to such lengths. He’s never met anyone with better self-control. It’s a survival tactic, but in the bedroom when it’s just the two of them, Steve would rather he let go. Tony routinely blows up his lab. He’d mitigate an incident involving the Hulk and play it off in the papers like a pro. 

That’s what Steve can’t do. He can’t be _good_ at this. 

He’s tried – to be grateful, to smile and joke, to pretend he’s not dying to bolt out of the spotlight as soon as the cameras stop rolling. Winning hearts and minds is as important as protecting the public. They can’t afford another New York. 

“You okay with this?” Bruce asks, cleaving through the quagmire of Steve’s thoughts as cleanly as a surgeon with a scalpel.

Steve looks down at his hands. He flexes his fingers. If he says _yes_ , maybe Bruce’ll unzip his fly and let Steve do something he’s actually good at. “Yeah. Swell.”

“Good.” A light pat on the cheek is all the reward Steve receives. Then Bruce is stepping away and taking the soft scrape of his corduroys with him, stripping Steve of all contact. He’s left naked and fettered on the bed, teetering on the tripwire-thin line between arousal and apprehension. Bruce resumes his seat. “I know you’re turned on.”

_No kidding_. 

Frustration ratchets up another few notches. “So?”

“You’re allowed to take care of it.”

_Allowed?_ Steve nearly scoffs. “You want to watch.” He may not be the sharpest crayon in the box – something the broadsides never fail to note – but he catches on. Eventually. He starts to rise, get his knees under him, when Bruce shakes his head. “What—“ And then it dawns on Steve. Bogota, Calgary – going down on Bruce is only half of the story. 

He doesn’t like to think about rutting against his bare shin like a dog, much less coming from sheer friction. “Oh.” 

He waits for Bruce to flash a smile, say he doesn’t have to, but they both know that to be true, so what’s the use? Steve folds his bound hands into the bed sheet – silver with navy stripes, Tony’s idea of harmless ribbing – and bows his head. The first drag of his hips against the coverlet is excruciating and divine all at once. Steve curls his toes, choking off a moan. Just because he’s doing this doesn’t mean he’s a – doesn’t meant he wants to hear Bruce call him _bitch_ , like in the movies he’s seen in stores, the kind he couldn’t buy now even if he wanted to. (It was a mistake the first time. ‘Pulp Friction’ was just a letter away from that movie Tony wouldn’t shut up about.)

But Bruce doesn’t say anything, not to encourage or mock him, and somehow that’s worse. Steve reaches his hips back, digs his knees into the mattress with a rip-stop rustle of fabric and strains for a moan, a sigh of boredom. He has to bite down on the inside of his cheek to keep from polluting the silence with his own white noise. It’s a distraction from the coil of pleasure squeezing tight in his lower back, like one of those Jack in the Box toys. He squeezes his eyes shut, which does nothing for the flush of heat spreading over his skin like an epidemic, and cants forward again. 

Somewhere along the line, breathing gets hard and he finds himself sucking in big gulps whenever his lungs start burning. His ears ring. He’s so close, levitating somewhere in the stratosphere—

“Stop.” That one word, so loud and so resolute, is enough to bring him crashing back to earth.

Steve blinks his eyes open, but it’s no good. The room may look familiar, but he’s hovering on the edge of the precipice and he doesn’t care that Bruce is watching him anymore, he doesn’t want to think about cameras flashes and the flood of spotlights and the incessant, invasive questions they keep shouting at him. 

He just wants to keep going, come like he did when he still believed touching himself would turn his palms hairy. 

Bruce nears the bed and shoves at his shoulder until Steve gets the message. He lands on his back, hands joined over his chest as if in prayer. He wills away the blasphemous thought. His cock is embarrassingly hard and pointing upwards like a staff. He thinks about covering himself, but Bruce already has a hand on his flank and it’d be weird to work around him. (Because that’s thing Steve is most afraid of. Being _weird_.) He opens his mouth to speak, but Bruce anticipates him. A palm covers his lips. “No talking,” Bruce says, redundantly. Steve already got that. But then Bruce slides his hand down to cup his throat and frustration becomes guilty, desperate need. 

Despite himself, Steve swallows against the curve of Bruce’s hand. He wants Bruce to feel his Adam’s apple, his pulse. _I’m human, I make mistakes. I’m not perfect._ It’s not like anyone else will give him the benefit of doubt. 

He has the sudden impulse to curl around Bruce’s knees and kiss his socks, maybe suck his toes. Whatever Bruce wants. He doesn’t need a doctorate to know it’s messed up. 

Bruce slides his hand down, palming his dick almost tenderly. His gaze is mild, but distant. Is he doing this out of obligation? Steve starts to object, but the hand around his throat tightens abruptly and he loses his train of thought. Bruce must have really great hand-eye coordination, because what the right hand does, the left doesn’t mimic. He strokes Steve with the tips of his fingers, not nearly enough for friction much less pain. 

A moan builds and builds in Steve’s throat, but he knows better than to let it out. Bruce doesn’t want to hear him and Bruce gets what he wants, even if it means suffering in silence. 

He blinks away the prick of tears, staring up at the diffuse lights that spill across the ceiling. There’s no water stain, obviously, and no yellowish light bulb dangling from a solitary wire. This isn’t Brooklyn. 

He’s not that boy anymore. 

It doesn’t stop him sucking in a hitching breath when Bruce cups his testicles in a broad, callused hand and squeezes. 

“Christ—“ _Stop_ , he thinks, but the word doesn’t make it out. He can’t blame it on Bruce’s chokehold. He’s not even a little green; Steve could easily break his hold. He doesn’t know what’s stopping him.

“You’ve been our Captain since they woke you up… And before that, you were fighting Nazis and saving the world,” Bruce says meditatively. “When’s the last time you let someone take care of you, Steve?”

Not _Captain_ , not _Rogers_. A ripple of tenderness rolls over Steve’s flesh, a smattering of goosebumps rising in its wake. “What, you mean like Bogota?” Tony isn’t the only one who can play the comic – though whether he could pull it off with his nuts in a vise-tight grip, Steve’s not so sure. Just to be safe and avoid the lecture, he makes a mental note to never, ever ask. 

Bruce is kind. He rewards him with the press of a thumb into the small dip between his collarbones. Is it a _careful, I don’t need to Hulk out to hurt you_ or more of a _don’t be such a smartass_? Could be either, both; Steve’s roster of relationships runs into the low single digits (the lowest, the singlest) and he can’t always read people as smart as the doc.

At length, Bruce eases off his windpipe and works his other hand further down between Steve’s thighs. He tenses – stupidly – when he feels Bruce run his middle finger up and down his cleft. Nothing he hasn’t endured before, although Bruce is decidedly gentler than army doctors ever were. Or he starts off that way. Steve’s breaths stutter when the stroke becomes a steady pressure and something, presumable Bruce’s finger, nudges against the tight rim of muscle. 

“Bruce…” It’s a good start, pity Steve doesn’t know what to say after that. _Please_ or _stop_? _More, don’t stop_ or _let’s not_? It doesn’t occur to him to wonder if Bruce would heed that kind of request. Maybe it’s because the hand around his throat has relaxed, more of an anchor than a collar. 

“Have you ever…“

Steve shakes his head – a little too quickly, if the ensuing silence is anything to go by. The expression on Bruce’s face is warm, calculating. He cocks his head. 

“Does that mean you don’t want to?” 

Again, Steve shakes his head. Two negatives make a positive. That’s how it works, right? He makes himself hold Bruce’s gaze like a challenge, one he feels answered in petting strokes and the press of a finger into his body. It’s an alien sensation: not unpleasant, but not straightforward, either. He can’t pretend he doesn’t know that his cheeks are pinking steadily. 

It doesn’t stop being weird, especially not when Bruce pulls away and rises from the bed. The downside is that Steve is still hard, cock a rigid weight against his belly and he’d really, really like to come. Instead, he props himself up onto his elbow and tracks Bruce’s progress to the bathroom. Seeing him return with hand lotion and a condom turns the stone in his gut to a block of cement. It must show in his face, because Bruce summarily tells him to roll over. 

Right. Steve wouldn’t want to look at himself looking so stupid, either. Naturally, he complies. 

Bruce slots a pillow under his hips, but not before pulling his cock back, so there’s no hope of friction to ease the twist of tension. Steve concentrates on breathing slow and steady, on not pushing up into Bruce’s hands when he strokes his back. He’s not a dog. He doesn’t need approval – except sometimes, when he gets so low that even a stray compliment from JARVIS will make his day. When he gets too deep inside his head and the guy staring back at him from the bathroom mirror doesn’t look like himself.

He grips the sheets with both hands when Bruce breaches him with two lotion-slick fingers, reminded of that one time he tried Vaseline, the stains it left on the bedspread. Blushing, but not because he remembers Bucky’s knowing smirk. 

“Breathe out,” Bruce advises, like he knows what it’s like. (That’s a thought for another night, when Steve isn’t holding on by the skin of his teeth.) He starts out gentle, mere prodding strokes that get him used to the idea if not the sensation, then less careful. Less tentative. He does something on the downstroke, curling his fingertips just right and Steve nearly bites his tongue on a wave of tooth-chattering pleasure. 

“Fuck—“ Profanity only ramps up the heat in his face. It’s common these days, everyone swears, but he still feels like he’s transgressing when he gives into bad language. Like some benevolent nun is about to crawl out of the woodwork and rap his knuckles with a ruler.

“There it is,” Bruce murmurs. 

Steve’s no virgin, but there are some things he never got up to in the USO. There was never any time for – this. Bruce is methodical about showing him what he’s been missing, though. Glancing strokes turn the tension in Steve’s shoulders to ramrod stiffness, the air in his lungs morphing to soup. He rolls his hips, desperate for release, but Bruce won’t let him move much further than an inch or two back and forth. 

Then he stops. Adrenaline squeezes out a mewl from Steve’s throat. It would be mortifying, if he could think beyond his next orgasm. 

He doesn’t know how he winds up on his back again, or why he doesn’t protest when Bruce grips him by the throat. He has a vague notion of Bruce ripping a condom free from its shiny wrapper – paraphernalia has evolved so much since the 40s, the condoms are as fine as snakeskin – but all of that fades to the background when he feels something thick and blunt press against his hole. It’s beyond him to relax, so it hurts a little and he grits his teeth. 

“Look at me,” Bruce says, looming over him large and pale, his salt-and-pepper hair limned in amber light. Steve does. “Do you want me to stop?”

The stretch is painful, yes, and it’s undignified to be on his back with legs spread around Bruce’s tapered hips, but Steve shakes his head. He left eloquence behind around the time when Bruce decided to rob him of sanity. He feels drunk, though he hasn’t touched a drop in months. He feels used, humiliated, but not enough to hate it. 

If he were honest, he’d have to admit he doesn’t want it to end. He’s so far gone he’d let Bruce do whatever he wanted to him, do whatever Bruce said. Steve puts his hands above his head and grips the slats in the headboard between his fingers. 

Bruce is a certified genius. He catches on quickly. 

The first time he moves, it’s like being speared open. The lotion does a lot to mitigate chafing, but Steve is too tight and Bruce too big to make it an easy fit. He pants through the worst of the pain, wheezing a little when Bruce cups his throat. Bruce doesn’t offer to stop again. Sweat slicks his brow – which is a relief, because Steve feels like he’s coming apart at the seams and it’s nice to know he’s not alone in feeling overwhelmed – and his muscles ripple beneath tan skin. 

He builds to a nice rhythm, two quick thrusts followed by a long, sinuous roll of hips to drive himself as deep into Steve as he can. His balls slap against Steve’s ass, a slick echo of skin-on-skin that scorches Steve’s ears. He caches that into the depths of memory, the better to bring back when he’s alone in the shower, with his hands around his cock and the spray pounding down harsh and loud to drown out his moans. 

There’s no such cover now. Every rattling inhale, every gusting exhale rings out obscenely, punctuated by the creaking of the bed. He starts to turn his head, to block one ear against the mattress, but Bruce tightens his fingers. He might as well be saying _no_. You listen. You watch. 

He doesn’t hold back. Steve can tell because Bruce pulls up his knees and folds them back, leaves Steve exposed and aching in the sweetest way. When he pulls out completely, Steve makes a sound like something dying. He cries out when he’s entered again, shoving his head back into the pillows, and Bruce clutches his neck tight. Breathing gets difficult for the space of a heartbeat. Steve’s eyes flutter open, seek Bruce’s gaze. Does Bruce want to hurt him? 

_Fat chance_. He hits Steve’s prostate on the next stroke and the one after that, sending eddying swells of pleasure up and down his spine. The burn of penetration has eased to an afterthought by the time he takes Steve’s cock in his fist. His erection has wilted a little, but a few pulls of Bruce’s fist and Steve is already straining to take more. He arches his back to try and move into the cradle of Bruce’s hand, but it’s awkward and he has no room. He can only take what Bruce gives him. 

It occurs to him that they haven’t even kissed. Bruce still has his shirt on, pants undone and lowered to mid-thigh, an oblong of skin visible all along his furry midriff, and Steve is pinned down between his body and the bed – hardly prisoner – and _they haven’t even kissed_. He wants to beg for it, but there’s no time. Release slams into him like a freight train. He thinks he shouts. He can’t be sure. It’s graceless and embarrassing, either way, but no more so than all those times he had to tuck himself back into his skin-tight suit at the end, hope the stains weren’t to visible. 

Bruce milks him dry, holding him almost tenderly as the shakes recede. Then he grips Steve’s thighs in both hands. The blissful haze of orgasm keeps Steve firmly rooted in the present. He sees every twitch of tension in Bruce’s body, every grimace that flashes across his face. There’s the stutter of his hips as his rhythm all but falls apart, and then the sight of Bruce, coming – something that Steve figured out he enjoyed watching months ago, in Bogota. 

Afterwards, Bruce falls limply on top of him, the harsh staccato of his racing pulse echoing against Steve’s ribcage. It’s hard to embrace a man with hands bound. That doesn’t stop Steve from trying. 

He feels more awkward pressing his lips to Bruce’s sweat-damp temple. He probably shouldn't. They don’t really have _that_ kind of relationship. And yet Bruce doesn’t pull away. 

A beat passes, two. Steve feels the shift of muscle beneath skin as Bruce pushes himself onto his elbows. He’s close enough to kiss for a moment, but then he goes on retreating, easing out of Steve and rolling over onto his back on the bed with ponderous sigh. Steve doesn’t know if he’s allowed to follow. He feels open and raw, the pieces of himself he guards most faithfully exposed for the world to see. He cants his head against the pillow, sizes Bruce’s profile in the low, artificial light. 

“Not bad… for an old man.” Levity tastes bittersweet on his tongue. His come sticks to them both, but mostly in dark patches on Bruce’s wrinkled button-down.

Bruce huffs out what might be termed a laugh. It’s not cruel, though, and Bruce doesn’t seem offended. Maybe that’s what gives Steve the courage to tilt against his flank and cup Bruce’s cheek with bound hands. The leather is an afterthought. Kissing Bruce is not. His lips are very soft, the fine scrape of stubble rubs against Steve’s upper lip just right. 

When they pull away, Bruce is frowning. “I didn’t know you could bruise.” There are calculations going on behind his eyes. Maybe even regret.

“Lots of things you don’t know about me.” It’s another way to say _I like it_. 

He watches Bruce watch him, gaze heavy-lidded and so dark with promise. “Is that so…” He strokes a hand through Steve’s hair. “Good thing you’re free until tomorrow morning.” Pending disaster, that is. But they’ve learned not to jinx the brief moments of respite they are afforded between missions. 

This time, Bruce is the one to pull Steve in, to force his lips open with his own. There’s nothing chaste in the kiss, no more than there is malice in the way he scrapes his fingers over Steve’s scalp. 

“Should’ve done this in Bogota,” Steve murmurs as he shifts to rest his cheek against Bruce’s chest. He likes the makeshift, hirsute pillow, the steady throb of Bruce’s heartbeat beneath his ear. 

“Next time,” says Bruce, one arm wrapped around Steve’s shoulders. He doesn’t offer to free his wrists. It’s as good a promise as any.


End file.
